WORKSHOPS
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
Webinar - Saving Belle Tower: Adaptive Reuse, Community Stewardship, and the Preservation of a Former Seventh-day Adventist Church in Petoskey
Thursday, May 21
1 p.m. - 2 p.m.
AIA: 1 LU
AICP: CM 1 #9329428
Speaker:
Lindsey J. Dotson
Historic Preservationist / Owner-Operator
Belle Tower of Petoskey / GD Placemaking
Lindsey Dotson is a historic preservationist, downtown revitalization consultant, and owner-operator of Belle Tower of Petoskey, a historic 1891 former Seventh-day Adventist church being rehabilitated as a community-centered venue, creative space, and preservation project in downtown Petoskey. Through GD Placemaking, Lindsey works with communities, downtown organizations, nonprofits, and property owners on historic preservation, grant writing, placemaking, planning, and community development projects. Her background includes hospitality and tourism experience at Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, more than a decade of organizing public events such as farmers markets and concerts in the park, and hands-on work helping historic properties find sustainable new uses. At Belle Tower, Lindsey is leading a phased rehabilitation effort that combines preservation planning, local partnerships, public programming, fundraising, and adaptive reuse to bring a long-underused historic building back into active community life.
Belle Tower of Petoskey is the adaptive reuse of a historic 1891 former Seventh-Day Adventist church at 224 Michigan Street in downtown Petoskey, Michigan. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the former Seventh Day Adventist Church, the building is a distinctive two-story frame Queen Anne structure known for its front-gable form, decorative wood detailing, prominent window treatment, and entrance tower with an onion-like dome.
This session will use Belle Tower as a case study in practical, community-centered historic preservation. The presentation will explore the building’s architectural and religious history, its connection to the broader story of Seventh-day Adventists in Michigan, and the challenges of bringing a long-underused historic property back into active public life. Michigan played a central role in Seventh-day Adventist history: Battle Creek became an important center of the Adventist movement in the 1850s, and the denomination was formally organized there in 1863. The project also connects Northern Michigan’s Adventist history, and one of America’s most significant historical figures thanks to a case of malaria.
Participants will learn how the Belle Tower project balances preservation standards, building code realities, public use goals, local approvals, financing tools, and phased rehabilitation. The session will also discuss storytelling as a preservation tool: how historic research, community partnerships, fundraising, and programming can help reintroduce a building to the public before restoration is complete. Belle Tower offers a real-world example of how preservation can move beyond saving a structure to restore civic purpose, local identity, and long-term community value.
1. Describe the historic and architectural significance of the former Seventh Day Adventist Church in Petoskey and its role within the city’s late-19th-century built environment.
2. Explain how the history of Seventh-day Adventists in Michigan, including the movement’s Battle Creek roots and Northern Michigan connections, adds interpretive value to the Belle Tower project.
3. Identify key preservation challenges involved in adapting a historic religious building for contemporary public, cultural, and community uses.
4. Discuss how phased rehabilitation, local approvals, tax incentives, partnerships, and community storytelling can support the reuse of a historic building.
5. Compare the practical realities of historic preservation work, including code compliance, accessibility, funding, and public expectations—with the broader goal of retaining historic character.
6. Integrate building history, preservation planning, and community engagement into a realistic adaptive reuse strategy for a small-city historic property.
Webinar - Epic Stained Glass of Metropolitan Detroit
Thursday, July 30
1 p.m. - 2 p.m.
AICP: CM 1 #9329793
Speaker:
Dale A. Carlson
Archivist, Historian, Photographer
Michigan Stained Glass Census
Dale A. Carlson was born and raised along the northeastern shores of Lake Michigan and has called metropolitan Detroit home since 2004. He holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from Wayne State University and is the author of Corrado Parducci: A Field Guide to Detroit’s Architectural Sculptor, Kahn’s Detroit: A Field Guide to Albert Kahn Designs of the Metro Area and Stained Glass New Orleans: A Field Guide. He lectures regularly on the history of Detroit and Michigan and works as an archivist and photographer for the Michigan Stained Glass Census. He credits his late wife, Carolin Venegas Jones, for inspiring his ventures into publishing and photography.
Join author, photographer and architectural historian Dale A. Carlson at 1:00 pm on the afternoon of Thursday, July 30th, as he discusses the enviable stained glass legacy of metropolitan Detroit, Michigan. Learn about the architects and early histories of numerous significant installations sites in both the city and the suburbs, many over a century old. Important makers covered in this presentation include Willet Studios of Philadelphia, Franz Mayer & Co. of Munich, Ateliers Loire of Chartres, France and, of course, Tiffany Studios of New York City. Carlson’s presentation will be augmented by numerous optimized newspaper and journal clippings and professional photographs that more fully elucidate the histories discussed. It will run approximately 45 minutes and be followed by a short Q&A.
After attending this session, participants will be able to…
1) Identify a handful of metro Detroit structures that house significant stained glass installations; mostly churches.
2) Identify a handful of historically significant stained glass makers represented in the Detroit metro area.
3) Understand and identify by sight the difference between the two most common forms of stained glass window fabrication: traditional lead-lined and dalle de verre aka “faceted”.
4) Explain that secular stained glass windows are significantly more rare than religious, and therefore generally of greater interest to art historians.
5) Explain that Louis Comfort Tiffany’s stained glass making legacy is so highly regarded by history and the public that it has relegated many of his contemporaries to relative obscurity, however unfairly.
6) Locate the website for the Michigan Stained Glass Census and explain that the public can contribute to the Michigan Stained Glass Census archive.
Webinar - Epic Remixing the City: Historic Preservation, Inclusive Design, and the Practice of Community Repair
Thursday, November 19, 2026
1 p.m. - 2 p.m.
Speaker:
Kiana Wenzell
Co-Executive Director, Design Core Detroit
Co-Director, Detroit Month of Design
Kiana Wenzell is an interior designer and creative director with over 17 years’ experience researching, planning, and executing design projects in metropolitan Detroit. She executes large- and small-scale projects at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) and managed local activations in partnership with local and national brands including Gucci, Foot Locker, Kickstarter and Ford Motor Co. Kiana also leads the programing for the Detroit Month of Design, an annual multidisciplinary design festival, that attracted over 50,000 attendees in 2020. Though her work with the festival, she collaborates with designers and partner organizations to create dynamic place-based events that bring cultural experiences to Detroit for Lear Corporation, Rocket Companies, Kickstarter, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Herman Miller, and others. Kiana has a 2004 BS in Interior Design from EMU, and a 2015 MS in Technical and Professional Communications from Lawrence Technological University.
This webinar is a reprise of the keynote address presented at the 2026 MHPN Conference in May, offering attendees another opportunity to experience this timely and impactful presentation.
Kiana Wenzell, Co-Executive Director of Design Core Detroit, explores historic preservation as an undeniably powerful strategy for community repair, recovery, and resilience. She contends that true resilience is more than simply “bouncing back”—it is the capacity of communities to use historic preservation to bend without breaking, to adapt and repair with creativity, grace, and endurance. Through the lens of inclusive design, Wenzell explores how preservation can advance three core dimensions of resilience—social, economic, and environmental. She highlights how Detroit serves as a “Living Laboratory” for these ideas, demonstrating how design and preservation intersect to drive community-led transformation. The lecture will include examples of architectural adaptation and public space renewal, such as the revival of Michigan Central Station into an innovation campus, the transformation of The Congregation church into a thriving neighborhood hub, and projects like the Detroit Riverwalk, Dequindre Cut, and Dreamtroit, which foster accessibility and connection. Wenzell will also discuss environmental stewardship, showcasing how Detroit organizations are upcycling waste into new materials and reimagining vacant land as spaces for cultural and environmental art. The presentation will highlight community-led design, including how residents have reclaimed the front porch as a platform for storytelling, neighborhood memory, and resistance. Ultimately, Wenzell celebrates preservation’s primacy to Resilience by Design—a philosophy of designing for continuity—where cities thrive by being continually remixed, inclusive, and future-ready. This topic is especially relevant as preservationists and urban practitioners face growing challenges: declining civic engagement, economic disinvestment, social fragmentation, and environmental vulnerability. Wenzell’s keynote proposes an integrated framework that centers repair, recovery, and adaptation as essential preservation strategies. Using Detroit as a model, she illustrates how inclusive design can address these challenges through social, economic, and environmental resilience.
After attending this session, participants will be able to…
1) Demonstrate that historic preservation is a powerful planning strategy for the repair, recovery, and resilience of Michigan’s communities.
2) Discuss the three core dimensions of resilience – social, economic, and environment – and how historic preservation addresses them.
3) Describe specific projects – Michigan Central Station, Detroit Riverwalk, Dequindre Cut, Dreamtroit – and why they are examples of architectural adaptation and public space renewal.
4) Explain “upcycling waste” for the environmental stewardship of Detroit, and “reimagining” vacant land as space for cultural and environmental art.
5) Articulate that Resilience by Design is a philosophy of designing for continuity where cities thrive by being continually remixed, inclusive, and future-ready through the primacy of historic preservation.
For more information, please call us at 517.371.8080
or e-mail us at Info@mhpn.org